Snakes and Ladders

Fergus Finlay was the chief spindoctor for the Irish Labour Party while Dick Spring was the leader. As such, he is uniquely placed to give an insider's view of what happened in a very eventful period in Irish politics.In fairness to Finlay, he explains at the outset that he is making no attempt to be impartial. He has his own side of the story, and that's what he's going to tell, without pulling any punches. As such he takes us on a sweeping tour of fifteen exciting years of Irish politics, through the Garret Fitzgerald led Government of 1982-87, Charles Haughey's years of power, the election of Mary Robinson, Haughey's downfall, the Fianna Fail/Labour coalition, the spectacular fall of that Government, the formation of the so-called "Rainbow" coalition and the evolution of the Peace Process.Through all these events we are getting Finlay's views as distinct from objective historical analysis, but once the reader bears in mind the fact that Finlay has his own fish to fry the trip can be quite rewarding. According to Finlay Dick Spring can do no wrong, Labour was primary force in anything that went right when in government and were as prophets crying in the wilderness when out of government.The written history of Irish politics is badly served by those who have been active in it, as very few memoirs exists. A fascinating comparision can be made between Finlay's "Snakes and Ladders" and "Another Spin on the Merry-Go-Round", the memoir of the Government Press Secretary under Albert Reynolds, Sean Duignan.In his book, Duignan gives a very prescient analysis of the role Finlay played in the Labour Party - "I like Dick Spring, but he's touchy, and when he's not touchy Fergus Finlay is touchy for him.""Snakes and Ladders" is well worth a read for people interested in that period when Irish politics changed irrevocably in the final decades of the Twentieth Century, despite the author's obvious bias. The tragedy is that there aren't more people like Finlay to go on the record with how they saw and helped the Irish political scene evolve into the landscape we have today.